The Lord is my Shepherd

Psalm 23

^{(NIV 2011)}

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
 ² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
 ³ he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
   for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
   through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
   for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
   they comfort me.

 ⁵ You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
   forever. 

I'm preaching on this passage really soon.  Meditating on the image of God as my Shepherd...and I as His lamb has put me in a fresh place of wonder and awe of Him.

It's kind of funny when I think of how many times I have seen the picture of Jesus holding a lamb, or heard about Him being "the Good Shepherd."  It certainly isn't that I didn't know what that meant conceptually, but at this season of my life I find that it just means so much more to me.  In fact, to be quite transparent...over the last day or so I have thought of that image of Jesus holding a lamb with appreciation where earlier I had some other emotion toward it.  I don't mean to be dramatic, but there was a little something inside of me that disliked those types of images, maybe because they were too wimpy, or Jesus almost looked giddy with a big smile on His face, etc.  Now I'm in awe that God allowed Himself to be so humble as to reach down and scoop up into His arms...a stupid, smelly little lamb like myself.  Wimpy?  No...incredible!  It's a perfect image of "meekness" ("power under control") - the amazing power of the Creator God who speaks this universe into existence...can also take on the form of a giddy shepherd holding His smelly lamb.  Why "giddy?"  Well that's another development lately in this season of my life...continually coming across the description and example of God's love for us.  He is overwhelmingly passionate about finding those whom are "lost" and scooping them up into His arms.  Read the 3 examples in Luke 15 and try to tell me that God isn't "giddy" - overwhelmingly excited about every lost person He gets to scoop up into His arms and call "son" and "daughter."

I have been scooped up into the arms of a Shepherd God who loves me more than I can understand.  Psalm 23 is an example of David trying to capture the height and depth and width of this love of God...he can't, but what a wonderful attempt!